World News - Gonzales makes legal case for domestic spying. You can’t have a Police State without domestic spying

US Justice Dept, facing lawsuits & congressional hearings on Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, sought on Thur to persuade congressional leaders the surveillance was lawful & did not violate civil liberties. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who plans to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb 6, sent a report to Capitol Hill outlining the legal basis for the National Security Agency's activities that Bush approved after the Sept 11 attacks. The highly classified program allows the monitoring of international communications, like telephone & e-mail messages, into & out of the US of persons linked to al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, without a warrant. Disclosure last month of the program sparked an outcry by Democrats & Republicans, with many lawmakers questioning whether it violated the US Constitution. Both Democrats and Republicans have been trashing the Constitution for years and now they want to sound like they care? We all don’t have short memories ... http://news.yahoo.com

A dog apparently fell from a freeway overpass and crashed through a car windshield, fatally injuring the driver, police said Thursday.Charles G. Jetchick, 81, died Wednesday of injuries suffered in the accident over the weekend in suburban Detroit. A passenger suffered minor injuries.Investigators do not believe the 60- to 70-pound Labrador retriever was thrown, but rather fell by while trying to avoid a car, State Police Sgt. Michael A. Shaw said. Police questioned the dog’s owner. The dog died after a fall of about 16 feet. ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10929060/from/RSS/

In a move to trim costs and calories, Colorado prison officials were going to quit serving inmates ground beef in some dishes and replace it with ground turkey. But in a cowboy state, home of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, they might as well have waved a red flag at an angry bull here this week at the 100th National Western Stock Show, the world's largest cattle exhibit and pride of the USA's $98.3 billion cattle industry. Faster than you can say "Buffalo Bill" — who is buried in the foothills west of here — Colorado beef industry groups and a state legislator from cattle country cried fowl. After they met last week with the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, ground turkey was put on hold while the state tests whether the plan to replace ground beef actually is cheaper and healthier. "They prepare those meals so cheap, I don't know that turkey and beef are that far apart in terms of price," says state Sen. ...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-19-colorado-beef-turkey_x.htm?csp=34

Just before Christmas, the Justice Department quietly held a meeting in Quantico, Va., that included New Orleans-area law enforcement officials and police chiefs from across the nation. At the top of the agenda: finding ways to ensure public safety in the hurricane-battered region, where police and sheriff's departments are struggling to deal with personnel losses, broken communications systems and a range of other problems. The meeting was an important step in developing a plan that could dramatically reshape law enforcement in the New Orleans area by merging functions of the city's police department with those of sheriff's departments in 4 parishes hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The plan which would require approval from local governments and millions of dollars in federal aid would consolidate the agencies' programs for analyzing evidence and training recruits. The New Orleans Cops were found to be the most corrupted and nothing has ever changed that...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-19-new-orleans-police_x.htm?csp=34

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday apologized to 33 Republican senators singled out for ethics criticism in a report from his office titled “Republican Abuse of Power.” “The document released by my office yesterday went too far and I want to convey to you my personal regrets,” Reid said in a letter. “I am writing to apologize for the tone of this document and the decision to single out individual senators for criticism in it.” Reid came under attack Wednesday over the report, which was issued by his staff on Senate letterhead, even as he and fellow Democrats released ethics overhaul proposals. “Researching, compiling and distributing what amounts to nothing more than a campaign ad on the taxpayers’ dime raises serious ethical questions,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, one of the lawmakers named. ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10929365/from/RSS/

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10928755/from/RSS/